2012 (5) TMI 129

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....erpretation Committee of the DGFT dated 26th November, 2010 and 29th March, 2011 wherein it is held that the petitioner namely, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. cannot be considered as group companies under para 9.28 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-2009. 4. The relevant facts are that, the petitioner is a Company engaged in the business of providing wireless telecommunication services in accordance with the Universal Access Service Licence (UASL) granted by the Government of India. For the aforesaid business, the petitioner had imported telecommunication and network equipment into India. Under the said licence, the petitioner was required to fulfill the export obligation to the extent specified and....

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....mmittee has held that the petitioner and TCS cannot be considered as group companies under para 9.28 of the Foreign Trade Policy. Challenging the aforesaid orders, the present Writ Petition is filed. 7. It is argued by Mr. Dwarkadas, learned senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioner that the impugned orders are bad in law as no reasons have been given for rejecting the claim of the petitioner. Morever, under para 9.28 of the Foreign Trade Policy any two enterprises could be said to be group company if any one of the two conditions set out therein are fulfilled. The first condition in para 9.28 is that when two or more enterprises directly or indirectly are in a position to exercise 26 per cent or more of voting rights in the ....

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....mittee consists of high ranking officers of the Director General of Foreign Trade ('DGFT' for short) and that the interpretation of policy given by the Policy Interpretation Committee is final and binding, it is not open to the Policy Interpretation Committee to arbitrarily pass an order rejecting the claim of the assessee without assigning any reasons. In the present case, the Policy Interpretation Committee has neither interpreted the policy provisions nor considered the claim of the petitioner that it indirectly fulfills the first condition set out in para 9.28 of the Foreign Trade Policy, but merely stated that the Petitioner and TCS cannot be considered as group companies. Such an order passed without assigning any reasons, cannot be s....